Hi there, I'm a neuroscience student at university and I'm here to share my fitness tips with you.

Tuesday, 22 May 2012

An Alternative to Calorie Counting

Every one knows that most diet plans focus on low calorie intake, which inevitably leads to calorie counting that often involves all sorts of complicated maths and points etc. So here I have an alternative way of keeping your diet in check.

One of the most important parts of your diet is often overlooked by many people, and that's fibre. In a healthy diet you should eat about 30-50 grams of fibre each day. Which I'm sure not that many people often achieve. The benefits of a high fibre diet are that it gives you a much healthier and cleaner digestive system, but a lot of people don't realise that fibre (as well as protein) is really effective at keeping you from feeling hungry throughout the day.

By looking at the amount of fibre in foods instead of the amount of fat or calories etc you only have to worry about one part of the nutrition, instead of all the annoying calculations. Generally speaking, the high fibre foods are often much healthier, as they are often lower in fat and less processed than other foods. A lot of people think of fibre and just think about cereals and bread but all fruit, vegetables, roots, nuts, berries, seeds are high in fibre. By making sure to eat high fibre foods, you will also cut the amount of calories you take in, the amount of fat you take in and also the less processed and preserved your food will be as a result of just choosing high fibre foods.

Two simple changes you can easily make to your diet, that will definitely help you on your way to a healthier and fitter body, are the cereal you eat at breakfast (always always have breakfast) and the bread you buy.

Buy choosing a high fibre breakfast you will feel fuller throughout the day (so you won't feel the need to snack as much) as well as avoiding all the high sugar, processed cereals that won't keep you full for nearly as long. Two great choices would be Weetabix or Fruit & Fibre. Secondly, you should change to brown bread, the more seeds and grains in there the better, not only does brown, or wholemeal, bread keep you fuller for longer than white bread, it also contains less calories than white bread. It often has many other nutritional benefits such as minerals and vitamins, that you wouldn't get from white bread (as that part of the grain is removed).

By making these two simple changes you will easily reach 50 grams of fibre a day (one medium slice of wholemeal bread contains 16g of fibre on its own!) this will aid weight loss as well as significantly lowering your risk of digestive disorder (irritable bowel syndrome etc) as well as many other diseases (such as coronary heart disease).